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Brian Cartwright ran a study on catcher basestealing prevention for Fangraphs. "The task is to seperate the catcher's ability to throw out base stealers from that of the pitchers they are teamed with," Cartwright wrote. Among his findings

1) New Dodger backup Brad Ausmus has been trending sharply downward in effectiveness, though the low rate of stealing attempts against him implies that opponents haven't realized it.
2) Henry Blanco, signed for cheaper dollars by the Padres on the same day the Dodgers agreed to terms with Ausmus, has the best caught-stealing percentage for a catcher over the past six years. "At age 36, Blanco has shown no signs of slowing down, having a normal CS% over .500 in 3 of the past 4 seasons," Cartwright said.
3) Dodger starting catcher Russell Martin fared above-average in the study, with a normalized caught-stealing percentage of .325 that ranked sixth in the majors last season.

In the comments on the study, Dodger Thoughts reader Xeifrank questions its viability.

Matt Kemp makes sabermetric news again. Rich Lederer of Baseball Analysts looked today at the effect of a hitter's groundball rate on his BABIP (batting average on balls in play), and he noticed that Kemp had the lowest groundball out rate in baseball in 2007 and nearly repeated the feat last season.

Jay Jaffe, who said his first impulse would have been to vote Jeff Kent into the Hall of Fame if given a ballot today, examined Kent's career at length for Baseball Prospectus and concluded him to be almost the definition of a borderline candidate:

Kent was a very good player for a long time, and an often misunderstood one. His lack of charisma and his businesslike approach made him an easy target, though his humorlessness should never have been confused with a lack of passion for the game. From this vantage point, he looks to be a borderline Hall of Famer at best. Even with no particular love lost for him as a fanone who spent years rooting against him as a Giant before settling down and appreciating his uneven virtues with the DodgersI'll admit that this still contradicts my gut instinct, but then that's one of the reasons for the five-year waiting period before a player reaches the ballot. Nonetheless, I strongly suspect he'll find his way into Cooperstown in due time, and if that's the case, it will hardly be the crime of the century.

5 Generally, no, and this goes back to my longheld belief that as a rule, teams don't carry two young catchers (the Angels are one exception). Primarily because unless you are going to platoon or have a designated day off, its just hard to find that second catcher enough playing time to stay fresh.

Finally, I think teams like the veteran backup because he usually has an idea about the hitters in the league.

On the Kemp front, Lederer mentions that hustle does play a factor. The one thing Matt does is bust his tail down the line basically every time. Even though defenders knows about his speed, I'm sure he surprises some with how fast he gets down the line every time.

At risk of a Rule 8 violation, Ausmus is here to provide Martin with PVL guidance, not to actually catch much. For whatever reason, the powers that be seems to think he needs a role model rather than a rest.

12 About how many games do you think Martin should start next year at catcher?

No question, Martin played a lot last year but he only started 3 more games than Mauer, 6 more games than McGann and Benji Molina. Now, he did play more games at catcher than those other players but I think Martin isn't going to go down to 120-125 starts no matter who the back up is going to be. But also remember this, Martin has said this off-season that he is beginning to realize that he does need to take more days off (I believe he had at least some say in this with Torre last year) so I would not be surprised if he takes more time off, even in the early going of the season.

14 - But didn't he say the same things last offseason? I seem to recall that he continually says that his body needs rest but it doesn't actually happen. I think 135-140 games caught should be his target.

14 Mostly I was riffing off Ned via Gurnick: "It's a big addition with [Ausmus's] knowledge and presence....He'll give us a chance to give Russell more time off, and at the same time, impart different thought and wisdom. We talked to Russell before he signed, and he said Ausmus would be a great addition for us. The combination of the two will help our pitching situation and help Russell develop into a better catcher than he already is."

But to answer your question, I'd rather see him around 145 than 155, with more rest in the first half.

19 Yeah, for some reason I was thinking games played rather than games started behind the plate, which you clearly wrote. Realized it as soon as I posted. But I'll stick with the basic premise of 145 games max, including late-inning defensive appearances.